3 Black Firefighters File Bias Claims Against Department

By MICHAEL COOPER

Published: July 1, 1999

Three black New York City fire lieutenants filed discrimination complaints against the Fire Department yesterday, charging that they were denied transfers to desirable posts because of their race.

The lieutenants said they hoped that their cases would focus attention on the lack of diversity in the Fire Department, which is nearly 94 percent white. They filed claims yesterday with the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, saying it was the first step toward bringing a Federal lawsuit against the Fire Department.

''It is offensive and appalling that at the turn of the century, African-American firefighters comprise less than 3 percent of a fire department made up of approximately 11,000 firefighters,'' said Bonita Zelman, a lawyer retained to represent the lieutenants by the Vulcan Society, a fraternal organization for black firefighters.

Lieut. Edward Alston, a 37-year veteran of the department, said his request to join the Marine One rescue unit was denied in favor of a white candidate with less seniority. Two other lieutenants, Roderick E. Lewis, a 20-year veteran, and Michael A. Cuttino, an 18-year veteran, said their requests to join specific ladder companies were similarly denied.

A Fire Department official said all three firefighters were well-respected members of the department. As for their claims, the official said, the white firefighter who got the post that Lieutenant Alston coveted did indeed have less seniority but was chosen in part because of his service on a naval patrol boat in Vietnam.

''There's management discretion,'' the official said.

Lieutenant Lewis's transfer request was denied because his superiors thought that he was doing such a good job in his current post, the official said, and the department has found no record of Lieutenant Cuttino's request for a new assignment.

In an official statement, the department said: ''While the Fire Department cannot comment on pending litigation, efforts to accommodate some of the requests of these individuals were ongoing. It is unfortunate that they have now chosen to litigate, an option that will prove expensive to all parties involved as well as to the public.''

Of the 10,860 members of the city's Fire Department, 93.98 percent are white, 2.92 percent are black and 2.86 percent are Hispanic. That makes the Fire Department even less diverse then the city's Police Department, which, with 67.4 percent of its members white, has been roundly criticized for its failure to recruit more people from minority groups.

For the last test to become a firefighter, 22 percent of the applicants were from minority groups, and in recent years, officials said, the department has taken a number of steps to try to attract more nonwhite candidates to the job.

Lynn Tierney, a Deputy Fire Commissioner, said that the department now offered a five-point bonus on the examination to become a firefighter to candidates who lived in New York City and that the department had eased the way for emergency medical technicians and paramedics who worked for the Emergency Medical Service, which is more diverse than the Fire Department as a whole, to become firefighters. And the department has begun a fire cadet program in city colleges.

Still, some faulted the department's efforts to attract minority candidates.

''Most people would think it's the Fire Department of Mississippi or Alabama or Georgia,'' said Norman Siegel, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. In fact, he said, Atlanta's Fire Department is 51.2 percent black, and the Fire Department of Birmingham, Ala., is 47 percent black.

Lieut. Paul Washington, the president of the Vulcan Society, said the department needed to do more to attract minority candidates. He complained that the Civil Service test to become a firefighter -- through which many minority candidates are knocked out of the running -- was not really a job-related test.

And Lieutenant Alston said: ''I didn't ask for preferential treatment. I asked for fair treatment, and I got mistreated.''